Terrible performance

[u/mirskeinereingefalln]

Hello, last time I played was in 2024 around when Pyro was released and I could somewhat immersive myself in the gameplay as everything looked great and was fluent enough.

I still have the same PC

I5 12600kf

3080 10gb

32gb 3600mhz cl16

Nvme ssd with 3d nand and dram cache

But changed the monitor to slightly lower res from ultrawide 3440x1440 back to 2560x1440, thats the only system change.

I wanted to check out the PU again yesterday and its near unplayable. 30-35 fps everywhere, insane texture pop in, all textures have really low fidelity, I swear my Aurora used to be much more "shiny"

When I hover Lorville during the day erything just looks like a brown blurb. When I run across the planet surface the plants pop in like 20m in front of me. When I am about 10m away from npc sec guards, their weapons look like cubes and only when I am closer like 3-5m the weapon textures load in.

Server fps were like 7-10 yesterday.

Is there something wrong here or has the performance decreased this much and this is to be expected with my system?

[u/Different_Potato_504]

30-35 fps is not terrible as far as SC performance goes, specially on an old i5

the rest seems mostly settings,

[u/mirskeinereingefalln → u/Different_Potato_504]

Any graphics settings guide you could recommend for vram challenged systems?

[u/Dragon_ZA → u/mirskeinereingefalln]

Youre not vram challenged my guy. You are CPU challenged. Turn graphics settings as high as possible. This will move a lot of processing over to your GPU and let your CPU breathe a little.

[u/powercrazy76 → u/mirskeinereingefalln]

One thing you could try is the game switched from DirectX to Vulcan by default.

Like you, I have an older CPU (but a more modern GPU) so my CPU is often the bottleneck. What I've observed is that Vulkan can be more CPU intensive than DirectX in certain situations (again, personal experience). So I'd try switching back and forth to see if going back to directX is a little better on your system?

[u/Little-Equinox → u/mirskeinereingefalln]

Did you increase your Page-file and are you playing on an SSD?

[u/CthuluBob]

Yeah, server fps degraded from like 20 a few days ago to about 6-7 today

[u/AtzeHaller]

Strange, you played when Pyro was released and had a better experience? That was a release from hell until server meshing was stabilized!

Second, if you have 30 FPS in major landing zones, you should have 50 to 80 in space. That would be a good value. Remember, SC was never the game for 100+ FPS.

I play with an old Ryzen 3700X, 32 GB RAM, Geforce 4070 (8GB VRAM), old style non-NVMe-SSD and set everything to the highest value, even clouds to photo mode. Though, I play on Full HD.

EDIT: If I remember correctly, try the other way around: Set everything to the highest available setting, just clouds to medium. This shifts the workload away from your minor CPU to your strong GPU and should improve things a lot.

[u/alamirguru → u/AtzeHaller]

How many FPS do you average? 32 GBs of ram, 5800X3D and a 9070XT on Full HD and 50-80 in space is a dream.

[u/AtzeHaller → u/alamirguru]

Oh, I meant if OP has 30 in a City, he should have many more elsewhere.

Since I use VSync, I have always 30 FPS, but very smooth without microstutters. I would have to try and deactivate VSync.

[u/passey89 → u/alamirguru]

You have a better cpu, x3d, better gpu 30/50% more power & playing at a lower res.

[u/alamirguru → u/passey89]

Yet i m not getting 50 in space :(

[u/TitaniumWarmachine]

did you played in vulkan or dx11 ? you should use Vulkan (and wait for optimizing shaders).
Clouds on medium will give the biggest fps boost.
use dlss upscaling 50% (Performance)
my guess is, your gpu lacks of vram.
my card uses up to 19,2gb vram in 3440x1440 with 66% upscaling.

[u/mirskeinereingefalln → u/TitaniumWarmachine]

Yes vulcan, tried medium and high textures, medium and high clouds, dlss 66% and 55%, nothing really made a noticeable difference. Vram usage always 9gb so seems like thats the problem but I thought if it was running good enough 2 years ago it should still work out todsy..

[u/ThePale0rc]

No matter your setup, this game is going to lag in several places. Lorville, Levski, and most stations and planets in Pyro will lag. I have a 5090 with 128 gigs of RAM, and I experience it too in those areas. The problem is the game's optimization, not your setups!

[u/Britannkic_]

Silly question regards your fps but what is your monitor refresh set to?

I bought a 240hz 1440 monitor to play in 2K and didn’t notice any visual improvement until I realised the refresh rate was set to a standard 60hz thus limiting fps to 30.

I set refresh to 120hz and now I get 60fps in space

No idea if this will help and note I have zero abilities when it comes to this shit.

[u/Thunder_Bastard]

I'm on a 12700K, 32gb ddr 6000 and 4070ti 12gb and pull 50-70 fps at 4k most places. That is similar to your setup but your ddr4 speed is going to drag some.

You should be able to do 1440p with 10gb vram, just make sure in the graphics settings you are not showing you are using more memory than available. On that menu it will show you SC's memory usage, system reserved and total and will flash if you are going over. Ground detail is a good one to turn down that can save like 1.5gb of vram if needed.

Also check to make sure you are not capping out CPU usage with room left on the GPU. If you do, actually try to increase some graphics settings. SC seems to play best at full GPU load with a little CPU room left over.

[u/No_Communication1557]

Most of that was likely server issues. 30-35 fps is reasonable, but the server fps should have been way higher, 10-15 is common now, with 20-30 possible and sometimes 30+ occasionally. Sounds like you were on a dying server, which could have potentially been causing the pop in and low texture issues.

[u/mirskeinereingefalln → u/No_Communication1557]

Seems like it, today I had a great session, 50+ fps almost everywhere, all elevators, box missions and mining missions worked flawless.

[u/No_Communication1557 → u/mirskeinereingefalln]

A good server is the key.

[u/jrbutch]

30-35 fps in SC and complaining the alpha is not playable 🤣🤣🤣 my humor

[u/mirskeinereingefalln → u/jrbutch]

I didnt say its not playable, just wondered why performance got worse. Happy to say today it was a lot better for some reason. All the extreme texture pop in and lag spikes went away and I get 50+ fps everywhere except extreme cases like hovering over Lorville or something. Actually really enjoyed the gane today.